


Empire of our Own

by tricksterity



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Hannibal Lecter has friends, M/M, season 1 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 05:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4817060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tricksterity/pseuds/tricksterity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will entered the house to see a redheaded woman lounging on Hannibal’s couch, in a pair of Hannibal’s spare pyjamas, drinking Hannibal’s wine. The hand that wasn’t holding her glass was held in a textbook perfect sling, courtesy of Hannibal, and she looked straight at him.</p><p>“You must be Will,” she said.</p><p>[Or: wherein I firmly believe that Hannibal has Actual Friends, one of whom ships him and Will ridiculously hard.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empire of our Own

**Author's Note:**

> I think I avoided Mary-Sueing this, mainly because she's not involved with anyone. I just wanted to write a fic where Hannibal has friends that he actually talks to and are involved in his life, and I like Talia as a character. I also wanted to write Will being confused about Hannibal's supposed best friend who just appears out of nowhere and lies about like a cat.
> 
> These are mostly just a series of timestamps set throughout season 1 in an AU where Will and Hannibal get together. If ya'll want more Talia shenanigans, I have a few more in mind, but for now we'll stick with these and see what the reception is.

Will entered the house to see a redheaded woman lounging on Hannibal’s couch, in a pair of Hannibal’s spare pyjamas, drinking Hannibal’s wine. The hand that wasn’t holding her glass was held in a textbook perfect sling, courtesy of Hannibal, and she looked straight at him.

 

“You must be Will,” she said, her voice soft and accent not yet definable. “You know, I’ve known Hannibal for eight years and I have never known him to talk so much as he does about you.”

 

Hannibal’s reply floated in from the kitchen, accompanied by the familiar smell of spices. “Talia, you are embarrassing me.”

 

“I don’t care,” she shot back with a dazzling grin. “Are you staying for dinner, Will?”

 

An hour later Will found himself eating an exquisitely cooked meal, as was custom at Hannibal’s house, with both his usual dinner companion and whom he discovered could be considered Hannibal’s best friend.

 

“I'm not Hannibal's best friend,” Talia said through a mouthful of spinach leaves that dripped with some homemade Italian-style vinaigrette. Instead of sitting at the dining table as they had at all their dinners, Hannibal had been persuaded by Talia for them all to sit around the coffee table in the lounge as she claimed her injury prevented her from getting up to sit at the table.

 

Will didn’t ask how she injured herself.

 

Will was honestly quite shocked that Hannibal had agreed, and that they were all now sitting cross-legged on cushions on the living room floor. Some obscure music was playing from Hannibal’s stereo, where an unfamiliar phone was plugged into, and Will thought the language might’ve been Russian.

 

“You certainly seem like best friends. I’ve never seen Doctor Lecter make any allowances for anyone before,” Will replied, waving his fork to indicate the current location situation. “Though I will admit up until now I hadn’t really considered that Hannibal would have friends with someone as… relaxed as you.” At his words, Talia let out a loud laugh.

 

“It comes with the upbringing. Nobody in New Zealand gives a shit about anything,” she said.

 

Hannibal somehow still managed to look cultured despite the fact that he was eating his skilfully made dinner on the floor. “Although Talia is not generally the kind of person of whom I would make an acquaintance, I have found that she understands me on a level that I have not quite encountered before.”

 

“Until Will Graham, that is,” she replied cheekily, eyebrows raised expectantly at the psychologist.

 

Hannibal pursed his lips and sighed, but his eyes glittered good naturedly, and Will was once again thoroughly confused. Though he had only known the doctor a few months, and he was still uncomfortable using his first name, he had felt some sort of connection with the man, and found that he could easily relax in his presence. Hannibal had become somewhat of a calm ocean that Will could wade into to take a few moments of peace from the crashing storm that was surrounding him, allowing him to take back the fracturing pieces of his mind that were slowly being consumed by the ghosts of murderers.

 

Will, however, didn’t know why Talia seemed to have some sort of inside joke going on when it came to him and Hannibal Lecter. He wasn’t blind to realise that it was an innuendo; he was just confused as to _why_ she insisted on making them.

 

“You’re confusing him, Talia,” Hannibal scolded. The redhead simply sighed and took another sip of her wine along with a prescription painkiller Hannibal had given her.

 

* * *

 

 

“What happened to you?” Will asked, pausing in the doorway of Hannibal’s lounge.

 

Lying on the couch, facedown, with her shirt pulled up to under her arms lay Talia. Perched next to her on a low ottoman was Hannibal, smoothly looping up the final stitch in a nasty gash in her side. Her entire torso was covered in dark bruises and a few cuts, with only one bad enough to require stitches.

 

Talia turned to look at Will, pillowing her head on her folded arms, and Will saw that her lip was split and indigo bruising mottled with crimson had begun to bloom on her cheekbone. Even with injuries that she should’ve gone to the hospital for and a face that was rapidly swelling, she still managed to look graceful for someone who spoke with an accent so thick that half the time Will couldn’t figure out what she was saying.

 

“As a beautiful woman unable to hold a job, with a ridiculous sum of inherited money, I find that although I travel the world whenever I wish, the only real enjoyment I can get out of my life is kicking the shit out of other people.” She moved, and then hissed at the twist of her injuries. “Although I guess most of the time people kick the shit out of me. What can I say? I’m an enigma.”

 

“Stop moving, Talia,” Hannibal scolded, cutting off the thread he was stitching up her side with. He applied a little more rubbing alcohol to the wound, and Talia hissed in some air through gritted teeth, but did as she was told.

 

“You’re telling me you do nothing but travel the world and get into fights?” Will asked disbelievingly. Talia let out a sharp bark of laughter, and even Hannibal’s lips twitched upward.

 

“I guess you could say that,” she replied.

 

* * *

 

 

“Will,” Hannibal called out, and Will turned back to the man whom he’d just kissed after stumbling into his house without a clue how he’d gotten there. “You are welcome to stay tonight. In fact, given your current state, I would infinitely prefer it, if only for your own safety.”

 

Will blinked a few times. His eyelids felt heavy and his mind was sluggish and slow to catch up, feeling far different than he usually did after he lost time, though from the way his body was aching and his stomach was rumbling, it felt like he’d been up for hours.

 

“I don’t want to impose,” he replied, and Hannibal smiled softly in a way he hadn’t seen before. The psychologist approached him, and gently carded his fingers through Will’s hair, and he’d deny that he leaned into the touch.

 

“You would not be imposing at all, dear Will,” Hannibal replied. “The bedroom is upstairs. Unfortunately it is too late for me to cook you something, but I do have some leftovers I could heat for you if you would be partial to them.” Will knew that even leftovers of something Hannibal had cooked would be amazing, and he nodded. Hannibal smiled again, and leaned forward to press a kiss feather-light upon his lips that made Will’s heart stutter a little in his chest. Hannibal made an amused noise like he could hear it, and pulled back and headed into the kitchen.

 

Will took a few seconds to calm himself, and then slowly stumbled his way upstairs, turning right on the landing to head to the guest room. He’d opened the door and flicked the light on before he realised that the queen-sized bed already had an occupant.

 

The form under the covers was slim, and the red curls were familiar. Not the orange-red tight ringlets of Freddie Lounds, but a deeper crimson red that fell in soft, large coils that reminded Will of Victorian-era paintings.

 

Will stared at Talia for a few minutes, not entirely sure what he should do, and he heard Hannibal approaching. He felt the psychologist stop behind him and peer into the bedroom.

 

“Ah,” Hannibal said, like he was surprised to see Talia there. “I had almost forgotten about our houseguest. Would you be amenable to sharing my own bed? I promise to behave myself,” Hannibal said slyly, and Will turned around with eyebrows raised up into his hairline. Hannibal held a bowl of what looked like stir-fry, but was probably French and not stir-fry at all, and had quite the smirk on his face.

 

“Where’s the fun in that?” Will asked, turning off the light. He could’ve sworn the snort Talia made as the two of them left was a laugh, and not just an unconscious noise made in sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

In the sudden silence in the house, now that their lips were apart and the pounding of Will’s heartbeat in his own ears had slowed down, he heard the sound of the shower running upstairs.

 

“Do intruders usually take showers when they rob a house around here, or did you forget something?” Will asked, whispering into the slip of space between them.

 

“Neither,” Hannibal sighed. “It’s probably Talia.”

 

Will raised an eyebrow. “And does _she_ usually break into your house to take showers?”

 

“Frequently,” Hannibal replied. “Excuse me.”

 

* * *

 

 

“You two deal with some fucked-up shit,” Talia said. “And I lived in Australia for a year.”

 

There was a file open on the desk, and she was sorting through large, glossy colour photos of the totem corpse pole that Will had visited that morning.

 

“How did you get those pictures?” Will asked resignedly. “They’re supposed to be classified FBI evidence.” Talia simply looked up at him from under her lashes and raised an eyebrow pointedly.

 

“I have connections,” she replied evasively, and far too innocently.

 

Will narrowed his eyes, and Hannibal came sweeping into the office, hanging up his coat on the hanger by the door. He sighed when he saw Talia perched on the edge of his desk. Hannibal then crossed the room and swiftly snatched the photos and file from her hands and slid them into his desk drawer.

 

Talia pouted but said nothing.

 

* * *

 

 

“So how did the two of you meet?” Will finally asked one night, seated between Talia and his lover. Talia was wearing what would generally not be considered appropriate dinner clothes – a large oversized shirt and some black bike shorts, though her red hair was perfectly curled and piled upon her head, and the only thing that marred her flawlessly made-up face was the swelling of her left eye and a split lip that had only just begun to scab over. Her six-inch stilettos that looked as though they could kill a man were drying in the hallway – they’d been covered in mud, apparently, and Hannibal had graciously cleaned them for her.

 

Talia looked up at Hannibal under her lashes and smirked, ignoring the stretch of her lips that threatened to re-open the cut, and Will had the distinct feeling that he was missing some inside joke. He’d gotten used to that feeling around the two of them though.

 

“We were both in Greece,” Talia began. “I was there to travel, as I’ve always enjoyed the Grecian summers and the smell of the ocean air upon the terraces.”

 

Hannibal took a sip of his wine. “I, myself, was making the decision upon whether I should open my private practise in Europe or the Americas.”

 

In actual fact, Talia and Hannibal had been there for entirely different purposes, but that was not something that Will Graham needed to know. Not just yet.

 

“I’d gone out for the night and was making my way back to my villa, though it was dark and I was slightly more drunk than I’d intended to be,” Talia admitted.

 

She had actually been stalking the streets perfectly clear-headed and sober, dressed in gym clothes, a large duffel bag and a towel slung over her shoulder. She hadn’t been heading to the gym.

 

“I had stayed for dinner with a potential client, and I too was returning home,” Hannibal chimed in.

 

The Chesapeake Ripper, before he’d been known as that, and had so far claimed many titles, including Italy’s _Il Mostro_ , had been on the hunt, following a particularly rude man whom he’d encountered in the market a day before. The man had been short and squat, but dressed in an impeccably tailored suit, and was unhappy that he had not been treated with the ‘respect’ he had felt he deserved a man of his stature. He had apparently been a very important man in Greece’s parliament.

 

He hadn’t actually been important at all, but he would have been the next day when he leaked information he should not have had.

 

“We both ended up walking through the same darkened, creepy alleyway on our way home and accidentally bumped into each other,” Talia laughed, sending a wink to Hannibal.

 

There had been two people in that alleyway, but one of them had not been Talia. She had been watching the politician through a scope from a rooftop, slowing her breathing as she loaded a round and made sure that the silencer was in place. Her finger had begun to tighten on the trigger of her target, clear-headed in the moment between breaths, when another figure had entered her scope.

 

A figure in an immaculate suit coming up behind her target, with glittering predatory eyes, sharp cheekbones and a knife that had opened the man’s jugular like a broken pipeline. Talia’s eyebrows had flown upwards as the man smoothly took down the man she had been contracted to kill. By the time she packed up her rifle and slid to the cobbled ground of the alleyway with a handgun pointed forward, the man in the suit had already begun to carve up the politician’s chest with surgical precision.

 

“Well this is awkward,” she’d drawled into the night.

 

“It was pretty awkward,” Talia said to Will, laughing around a roasted almond that she’d crunched into. “I’d managed to spill what was left of my drink all over Hannibal’s suit and he looked like he was about ready to kill me.”

 

His suit had been sprayed with arterial blood, and his head and knife jerked upwards at the sound of her voice. He’d gripped his knife tighter, ready to kill again, and Talia clicked her tongue and took another step forward, flicking off the safety of the gun in warning. The gun was matte black, untraceable, and with no serial number, just like her rifle.

 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she’d said.

 

“And why shouldn’t I?” Hannibal had replied, though neither of them had not yet known each other’s names.

 

Talia had shrugged. “I’ve got the ranged weapon, and if I didn’t, you’d still be dead before you could take a step. You might be a predator but I’ve got training, and I’m considered to be one of the best in the world at what I do.”

 

“And what would that be?” Hannibal had asked.

 

“Same as you,” Talia replied. “Killing. Except I don’t do it for fun, or art, or whatever the hell you lot do it for. I’m government contracted and sanctioned, but when it comes down to it, there really isn’t a difference between us. We’ve both got no morals, and the only real difference between you killing people and me killing people is that others pretend that because I’m told to do it by the government, it means that I must be in the right, but because you do it for your own pleasure, that makes you a monster.”

 

Hannibal had paused, weighed up her words, and then stood down from his offensive stance. Talia did the same, and then clicked the safety off her gun and pointed it towards the ground.

 

“I’m Talia,” she said.

 

“Hannibal,” he had replied.

 

“Okay, Hannibal, would you mind telling me why you’ve killed this man I’ve been contracted to kill? I’m not exactly against it, it means less work and clean up for me, but as far as my intel is concerned, I don’t imagine normal citizens would be targeting him for political reasons,” Talia had asked.

 

“He was rude,” Hannibal replied. He huffed, and then crouched down and continued his work. Talia approached and watched with morbid fascination as Hannibal peeled the skin and muscle apart with gloved hands, then began to cut free the edible organs he could reach without needing to break open the ribcage.

 

“Rude?” Talia asked. “I hope you have a high standard for what constitutes as rude or everyone’s in danger.”

 

Hannibal’s lip had twitched up. “He reduced a woman selling fruit at the market to tears with his yelling, and nearly knocked me over on his way out without an apology.”

 

Talia whistled into the night. “I wish I could’ve killed people like that back when I was stuck in a retail job. This one pays much better.”

 

“You work for the government?” Hannibal asked. “Which one? I wasn’t aware that New Zealand specialised in assassins.”

 

“That’s complicated, and it’s also amazing that you’re the first person who hasn’t accused be of being Australian,” Talia replied, watching as Hannibal lay the man’s liver and kidneys into a small cooler box that he’d brought with him. “I was originally contracted by the US, but now I’m kind of just for use for any government that needs me really. I get paid an exorbitant amount of money for something that I’m good at, and I’m not fussy about who they have me kill.”

 

“You don’t have any rules of your own?” Hannibal asked, cleaning and pocketing what Talia now realised was a surgical scalpel.

 

“Well I don’t kill – and apparently eat – the rude,” Talia grinned. “I won’t kill anyone under eighteen, but that’s about as far as my rules go. As I said, I don’t really have any morals.”

 

Hannibal stood, finished with his work, and picked up the portable ice box.

 

“Would you like to join me for dinner?” he’d asked. Talia had grinned.

 

“Let me just pick up my rifle and I’ll be right with you. Though, I hope you won’t take offense when I tell you that I’m a vegetarian.”

 

Will raised an eyebrow at Talia’s sudden devolvement into snorting laughter as though she was saying something particularly funny. He looked to Hannibal, who looked both amused and exasperated. Hannibal reached across the table and placed his hand on Will’s, entwining them together. Will smiled, loving the soft side of the man he was beginning to fall for.

 

“I invited Talia to dinner, and we have remained in contact since,” Hannibal finished the story.

 

“Doesn’t explain why she breaks into your house to use your shower,” Will mumbled in reply.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone's wondering, the obscure Russian music that Talia's listening to is Радость моя (Radost moya). You can listen to their music here: https://soundcloud.com/r4dost
> 
> **If you liked my writing and you're interested in me writing something for you, click[HERE](http://tricksterity.tumblr.com/post/140544637431) for more information! **


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